In Conversation with Dr Michelle Johnston

(For adults)

The Emergency Department – loud, chaotic and heaving with broken bodies – seems an unlikely place to find marvelment. But what if there was a seam of joy, of wonder, of fascination running through it and all you had to do was notice?  Because, sometimes, the antidote to trauma, to horror, is … wonder.

Join us as Elizabeth Lewis talks to Dr Michelle Johnston about her new book Fifty Beating Wonders.

Fifty Beating Wonders is a book about the marvels and majesty of the human body from the point of view of an Emergency Physician who has spent the past thirty-five years with her hands and her own heart dedicated to trying to fix those bodies when they come in broken. It is a book that travels into the emergency room and deep into the human body – and into the mind and the hands of one doctor trying to figure out why her heart is beating so fast every time she steps into that department. 

Over the course of one shift, and one catastrophic motorcycle crash, Fifty Beating Wonders goes on a journey behind the battered doors of an inner-city emergency department and into the wonders of the astonishing human body, to discover that in every unsung, overlooked part of what makes us human, there is absurdity, marvel, awe and surprise.

This is a book about the human body. It’s a book about when that body goes wrong. It’s about the inestimable wonders of human pathology and the modern medicine that goes about trying to right it. But it’s also about a life in emergency medicine, about inequity, about hope, about balance, about connectedness. It is a love-song to what makes us human and a polemic about how and why we fail. It’s about joy, it's about what really happens inside the doors of a hospital, it’s about failures, it’s about triumphs. It is a book about the most wondrous question of all, what makes us human?

Like When Breath Becomes Air, Being Mortal and The Emperor of All Maladies, Fifty Beating Wonders is a stunning book about the magnificent complexity of the human body and the miracle of being human. It is absorbing, uplifting, moving and celebratory – a wonder indeed.

Books will be available for purchase on the day courtesy of Dymocks Midland Gate.

Bookings are essential for this free event. Light refreshments will be available. You are encouraged to bring your own cup for tea/coffee or water.

Please let us know if you have any accessibility requirements.

Please remember to cancel your booking via Humanitix or by contacting the library on 9290 6755 or email gills@mundaring.wa.gov.au if you are unable to attend on the day. Places can then be released for someone else to enjoy.

About the author: Dr Michelle Johnston is a consultant Emergency Physician who works at an inner-city hospital. Mostly, her days consist of trauma and mess. Also, she writes. She studied medicine at UWA, and gained her Fellowship with the Australian College for Emergency Medicine in 1998. She loves caring for patients and teaching, but is terminally confused by health bureaucracy and is an expert in meeting avoidance. She believes there is a beating heart of humanity, art, and beauty within the sometimes brutal reality of the Emergency Department, and she has dedicated her career to finding that sweet spot between creativity and critical care medicine. Books are her other oxygen, and writing her sustenance.